Mosque-goers are relieved from the “overwhelming” support received from the community after vandals struck the Cold Lake mosque on Oct. 24.
“The support from the City, the support from the military, the support from all people, we got calls from all across Canada supporting us. It made us forget about what happened,” said Mahmoud El-Kadri, a representative of the mosque.
What El-Kadri is trying to forget is the hateful attack on the mosque, which saw two windows smashed, and the words “go home” and “Canada” strewn across the exterior of the building in red, messy spray paint.
Sgt. Troy Hadland of the Cold Lake RCMP is part of the group investigating the incident. After the initial collection of evidence Hadland says currently the case is not being considered a hate crime.
“Unless there is any indication at the end of the day (of a hate crime), then we will look at that. For now it is just a mischief case,” said Hadland.
“We are examining some evidence that we have collected and that takes time. Right now we have nothing concrete.”
Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland was inundated with positive comments from people all over the globe about the City's response to the crime. He was very “proud” of the way residents responded to the incident.
“I think everybody in the community deserves a pat on the back, especially the ones who were out there scrubbing the building. Thank you,” said Copeland.
“I think that was Cold Lake. Cold Lakers showed themselves in fine form (that) Friday and as mayor I was proud to speak on everybody's behalf. I knew Cold Lake was going to come through and they certainly did.”
After having a week to reflect on the incident El-Kadri said as far as he is concerned the act was caused by some uninformed individual “who had nothing better to do” and doesn't think it will happen again.
“We are not looking in that corner. It was just an individual,” said El-Kadri. “We have been at that location since 2010 and we have seen a lot of stores around us have windows broken, maybe it was our time this time.”
He does, however, plan to provide those in the community with the opportunity to become more informed about their Islamic culture and will be bringing in a guest speaker.
“People have questions about the group that is presenting as Islam and the things that are happening and going on in the name of Islam. For us we felt it was a good time to bring someone in to clear all of that up. For people who want to know more they will have the ability to come and join us,” said El-Kadri.
He added, “the person that did this, we felt that if they knew a little more about the mosque and that this is a place for prayer and knew a little more about Islam, they wouldn't have done this.”
The exact details on the guest speaker presentation will be released this week, with El-Kadri targeting a date in late November for the event.
